Songs That Made You Pull Your Car Over

Was there any song out there you listened to that at one moment you pulled your car over to the side of the road?

Two songs in particular made two different musicians pull their cars over to the side:

"Be My Baby" by The Ronettes (1963)
Victim: Brian Wilson
Moment: the chorus

"Roxanne" by The Police (1979)
Victim: Billy Joel
Moment: Sting's highly-pitched vocals

Has this ever happened to you?

~Ben

 

Catherine Wheel - "Black Metallic"

Literally pulled into a gas station to listen and try and right down lyrics so I could find the song later. (This pre-Internet era before everything was at our fingertips)

 

Ours - Fallen Souls

Like Jeff Buckley rose from the dead through a band for one song! (Sadly, the rest of their output doesn't measure up to this moment of greatness).

 

"Keep Your Hands to Yourself," the Georgia Satellites. Stunned that anyone was playing honest Faces-style rock in 1986. (It happened driving through West Hollywood.)

 

A song by Game Theory that I've never been able to identify, and the first time I hear "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies. The latter was especially memorable; it was from a college radio station and I was driving away and the signal was fading. I stopped so I could hear the end and the name of the band. Luckily, I got both.

 

End of Act 1 of Madama Butterfly. Pulled into a parking lot and turned it up, having never heard it before. When it was done, I opened my eyes and there was a woman outside listening along!

 

Big Star "You Get what you Deserve"...a buddy of mine who was playing with Tommy Hoehn...a close friend of the band in 1981 gave me a cassette of Big Star....at a time where their albums were pretty hard to find and way before CD re-issues...amazed me how melodic, yet raw they sounded.

 

I was still doing that until a few years ago.

 

Inner Circle "Bad Boys"

 

She had a praying Grandmother!

 

I stayed in the car for a few minutes extra when I'd pulled up in the parking lot for my groceries when Coldplay's "Trouble" had started to play. Loved the melody and the almost jazzy instrumentation.

 

Two come to mind:

"Papa was a Rodeo" by Magnetic Fields

More recently "A Showman's Life" cover by Buddy Miller

 

why don't we do it in the road.

 

Leonard Cohen - "Avalanche". Needs surrounding calm and quiet.

 

Irene Papas & Vangelis ; Menousis.

 

I remember driving on the freeway from Palo Alto to Los Angeles, and early in the AM, still dark outside, a Radiohead track came on the radio. I didn't stop the car, but I recall thinking that it was beautiful. I THINK it was "Pyramid Song", but I can't remember for sure.

 

Gary Moore, Still Got The Blues.

I was coming home very late one night from work and an independent blues station played this cut somehow a few days before the LP's release to the airwaves.

I always respected Gary's guitar skills, but this cut really cemented him for me as a great song smith too.

The whole tune is so well put together, it sounds deceptively easy to play.......... until you really try to nail it.

His reverse bends although subtle, have to be hit spot on to really nail that sound he got.

It takes a lot more finesse than most guitar players would like to admit. I still struggle this many years later to really hit them spot on consistently.

Miss ya Gary....RIP.

 

First time I heard Simon & Garfunkel's "My Little Town"! It'd been five years since I'd heard those voices harmonize together and, given all the bad words that had flown back and forth in the meantime, I thought I'd never hear them together again. It was truly magical!

 

For me it was "Elvis Presley Blues" by Gillian Welch. I just couldn't concentrate on the road, so fascinating was the song.

 

to add to your celebrity examples, i've read that 'american girl' by tom petty made roger mcguinn pull over scratching his head trying to figure out why he couldn't remember recording it.

cheers,
rob

 

Many years ago i pulled up at home around midnight just as this amazing song started. Spent 10 minutes sitting in the cold and dark listening to Maggot Brain. If course i raced out and bought the album straight away but ive never forgotten the first time!

 

All the songs with police sirens in them.

 

The only time I remember pulling over was coming back from Sam the Record Man's (RIP) store in Toronto about 9 years ago; I bought McCartney 2, The Monkees Head and a 3rd don't recall what; I think my wife, then girlfriend, wanted to pull over and get out for my picks. She bought a Billy Joel comp and Nina Simone....

Driving home I was more excited about my picks than she was hers so I listened to Head and McCartney 2. Then she put on Nina Simone and I was blown away by her voice and the lyrics. I remember being near Sharbot Lake on Hwy#7 it was dusk and the song Four Woman came on. I couldn't believe how powerful her singing was, I'd never even heard of her before!

So yes I have pulled over for a song

 

First time I heard 'Against All Odds.' Crikey.

 

On a related note, my wife (before we were married) was driving home late one nigh and a police car was attempting to pull her over. It took a while for her to realize the siren she was hearing was real.

When she finally stopped, the annoyed officer said "didn't you hear the siren?" and she told him she thought it was in the song on the radio (that she had been blasting). The officer checked her license and registration and let her off with a warning.

I suspect it would have gone down differently if had been me and not a pretty girl...